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Players and coaches can clutch all the pearls they want about fans booing the American anthem at the 4-Nations Face-off in Montreal — and at recent NHL games — but maybe they should spend some time asking why it’s happening.

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Listen, I get that hockey players aren’t expected to know the ins and outs of politics, that all we should expect of them is to be able to explain the ins and outs of zone entries and zone exits.

This isn’t about politics, either. This is simply about recognizing that people are going to react when bad things are said about their country.

The hockey players on display are millionaires. They want for nothing.

The fans in the stands, most of them have enough worries in their life without even getting into the rhetoric of the American president. Those fans have kids to feed, mortgages to pay, jobs to work, stories to write, art to make, hockey games to watch.

Let’s be clear here: this is about the rhetoric of the American president. It goes without saying that a large percentage of Team USA probably think their renewed president is great. He makes them feel good about whatever it is they want to feel good about.

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Here’s the thing: he’s spewing venom at Canada. He’s talking about taking over this country that we love.

As is well understood, Canadians know one thing above all else: we are not Americans and we have no desire to be Americans.

Our country isn’t perfect but it has lots to be proud of. We have a very safe society. We do see poverty as a problem for everyone, that we should do our best to help everyone. We believe medical care shouldn’t leave you with a crushing bill at the end: as an Ontario businessman, Rahim Moloo, said on the CBC this week: “Insulin was created in Canada and is available to all Canadians. In the U.S. it costs $500.” Mothers are to be celebrated and supported: we offer a year to 18 months for maternity leave.

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Those are things to fight for. Our way of life is different.

It’s only fair that Canadians are standing up for ourselves

Listen, Team USA, this isn’t about you, but yes it’s about your jersey and who it represents right now.

Let’s be clear here: your president, who we know most of the guys on your team really like for some reason, has made a few things clear.

• He doesn’t respect our country.

• He thinks our country is just something to be bought.

• He probably thinks our country is just something he can walk into and take.

• He certainly isn’t abiding by the Golden Rule.

• He also doesn’t care about our shared histories, how we’ve fought alongside each other and cared for each other in crisis.

Thinking the anthem stands for soldiers and fights for freedom is a pretty narrow understanding of all the things our country has achieved, but if that’s the framework, so be it: let’s be clear about what those soldiers were fighting for. They were fighting against the idea that a country could simply take over another country because it wanted to. They were fighting for the rights of nations and the people in those nations to live their lives as they saw fit.

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President Donald Trump’s rhetoric assumes the principle is wrong, that Canadians are somehow undermining his ideals. Of course Canadians know this is ridiculous. Because of the accidents of geography, we’ve become a major supplier of energy to the U.S. That relationship has long proven beneficial to both parties. There’s no reason to move away from how things have worked.

These arrangements operate because they are built on trust. That’s the ultimate failing of Trump’s position: if he were to try to take this country by force, all the things he’d want would be under constant threat of destruction.

No one wants that. Canadians just want peace in their country. The right to watch hockey in peace.

It’s absolutely our right to boo your anthem. Indeed, it’s the basic thing we can do right now.

pjohnston@postmedia.com

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